Woudhuysen



Construction, Property and Cities Posts

Building and environmentalism

Environmentalism is at the root of the housing crisis

Published 26 July 2024

Labour’s pandering to green quangos shows it’s not remotely serious about building the homes we need

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Mouldy homes

How Net Zero leads to mouldy homes

Published 10 June 2024

The UK government’s insulation programme has been an all-too-predictable disaster

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Five Critical Essays on Architectural Ethics

Five Critical Essays on Architectural Ethics

Published 3 May 2024

These days it seems that ethical behaviour has become a given

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Keir Starmer

Labour’s elitist assault on housebuilding

Published 19 September 2023

Keir Starmer has sided with Brussels and the British aristocracy to block thousands of homes from being built

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UK building site

The ‘blob’ has gone to war with housebuilding

Published 1 September 2023

Britain’s environmental quangos are perpetuating the housing crisis

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Caban Goch reservoir

Why water rationing is coming down the pipeline

Published 9 April 2023

Instead of securing our water supply, the government plans to radically reduce home usage

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Creaking infrastructure

Why our infrastructure is falling apart

Published 24 July 2022

Britain’s elites have given up on building for the future

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Outdoor heat pumps

The heat pump revolution: extracting power from the people

Published 12 December 2020

The climate technocrats’ posturing over heat pumps will be expensive, impractical and invasive

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Sky News interview on Grenfell anniversay

Grenfell

Published 14 June 2018

On the anniversary of the disastrous Grenfell fire, we are right to question the state of the construction sector

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House building in UK

Why they can’t fix the housing crisis

Published 12 March 2018

Both the Tories and Labour dread the radical shake-up we really need

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Sky News debate on housing crisis

Britain’s housing crisis

Published 26 February 2018

James and campaigner Kennedy Walker debate solutions to Britain’s housing crisis

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Modular home

The future of housing

Published 20 November 2017

The future of housing

In 2004, with the architect Ian Abley, I published a book titled Why is construction so backward?.

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Sheffield Crucible Theatre

Report on Sheffield City Centre, September 2015

Published 22 September 2015

This report suggests how technology and a fresh, libertarian approach to the future of Britain’s cities could go one better than the samey, grey spatial determinism that passes for urban policy these days

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Colour, brands and identity in tomorrow’s cities

Published 16 November 2011

In London, they brought the fluid neon colours back. For more than 50 years, the moving, illuminated electronic liquid of Lucozade, an energy drink, inspired motorists driving above down-at-heel Brentford, as they reached the western approaches of Britain’s capital at night

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This land is our land

This land is our land

Published 8 August 2007

If New Labour is serious about making homes more affordable, then it should allow members of the public to buy land and build homes where they please.

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In praise of big cities

In praise of big cities

Published 9 March 2007

A controlled demolition of a new report that says… cities make us sick

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Contamination

A big stink over contamination

Published 2 February 2007

High profile companies face embarrassing clean-up operations – and ridiculous amounts of hysteria

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The dangers of Brownfield Brutalism

Published 20 September 2006

New Labour’s narrow vision for infrastructure causes overcrowding and inflames the Malthusian idea that there are ‘too many immigrants’.

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IT holds key to East London regeneration

Published 13 April 2006

Everywhere you go in an office, regulators want to control your life.

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Stop this ‘urban regeneration’ roadshow

Published 24 November 2005

We need some tall thinking on city planning.

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Constructive ideas from the East

Published 13 October 2005

China needs new homes – don’t we all?

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Metro miserablists

Published 7 October 2004

Two new top-level reports only seem to see the downsides to life in a big city.

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Homes 2016: Blueprint Broadside

Homes 2016: Blueprint Broadside

Published 26 September 2004

Too many blueprints for the home of the future begin from the interior. They should start from the factory, argues James Woudhuysen and Ian Abley

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Construction and transport: Victorian Britain lives on

Published 14 June 2004

Risk-aversion, short-termism and technophobia are holding back the UK’s roads, railways and buildings.

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Why is construction so backward?

Published 12 February 2004

The UK government should ditch the sustainababble and build the prefab houses Britain needs.

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Time to build a fresh, non-nimby approach to new housing

Published 30 January 2004

We should have more stigma-free prefab homes

Kate Barker’s final report on the supply of houses in this country, commissioned by Gordon Brown and due in the spring, comes not a moment too soon.

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Lightness

Review of Lightness by Adriaan Beukers and Ed van Hinte

Published 6 July 1998

Adriaan Beukers and Ed van Hinte, Lightness: the Inevitable Renaissance of Minimum Energy Structures, Uitgeverij 010 Publishers, July 1998

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